What is the ruling on treating sorcery with sorcery?
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The questioner : This questioner asks: What is the ruling on treating sorcery with sorcery?
The Shaykh : And I say regarding the first question: if one hears from a boy words containing shirk (associating partners with Allah), he must forbid him from them so that the person is purified from shirk. As for the last question, which is breaking sorcery with sorcery, the scholars have differed on it, but forbidding it is preferable. Because if we opened the door to breaking sorcery with sorcery, people would learn a great deal of sorcery. Everyone would learn sorcery in order to break it, because when one breaks sorcery, he makes a lot of money. So the knowledge of sorcery would become a profession that many people would practice. So we say: this bewitched man—we ask Allah for safety for us and for you—what is the last thing that will happen to him? He will die. And a person dies in any case, today or tomorrow. It is true that he may suffer and his family’s chest may become narrow. But this is among the calamities upon which one must be patient. As for opening the door and saying, “Break the sorcery with sorcery out of necessity,” even if some scholars have said this, I know—or it is my strong suspicion—that if this door were opened, you would see people making a profession of learning sorcery. Yes.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.
The Shaykh : And I say regarding the first question: if one hears from a boy words containing shirk (associating partners with Allah), he must forbid him from them so that the person is purified from shirk. As for the last question, which is breaking sorcery with sorcery, the scholars have differed on it, but forbidding it is preferable. Because if we opened the door to breaking sorcery with sorcery, people would learn a great deal of sorcery. Everyone would learn sorcery in order to break it, because when one breaks sorcery, he makes a lot of money. So the knowledge of sorcery would become a profession that many people would practice. So we say: this bewitched man—we ask Allah for safety for us and for you—what is the last thing that will happen to him? He will die. And a person dies in any case, today or tomorrow. It is true that he may suffer and his family’s chest may become narrow. But this is among the calamities upon which one must be patient. As for opening the door and saying, “Break the sorcery with sorcery out of necessity,” even if some scholars have said this, I know—or it is my strong suspicion—that if this door were opened, you would see people making a profession of learning sorcery. Yes.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.